On the second day of our kick-off meeting, John Van Oorschot took us on two tours: the GMS-neighbourhood in Heerlen and the Superlocal premises in Kerkrade.
The GMS-neighbourhood in Heerlen is one of the five ecosystems in our project. Since the closure of the mines in Heerlen, GMS has developed into a varied residential area with various educational facilities. A large part of the building stock is outdated with a large environmental footprint because of its low rate of energy efficiency. The district has approximately 5000 inhabitants occupying 3272 housing units mainly dating from 1925-1950. 68% of dwellings have energy label D or lower and 14% of households experiences energy poverty.
In Kerkrade, the ambition of the SUPERLOCAL circular area development is to reuse the materials of two vacant high-rise flats for the construction of approximately 130 new homes and the design of the public area.
